Comic Cuts — 8 November 2024

I have a fairly dull life punctuated by occasional moments of intense pleasure. As I spend most of my life writing and designing books as Bear Alley Books, most of those moments are tied to the completion of little essays, introductions, finishing the design of a book or a cover, or the arrival of the first printed copies.

Balanced against that is the tightening of the stomach moments: facing a blank page; trying to get an idea out of my brain and down my arm and onto the computer without it turning into a disaster; waiting for proofs to arrive. You catch me in that moment... I'm expecting a proof of the new book to arrive today. I know it isn't the final version because I've already made changes to the text, but that was expected. To get the book out in time for the Paperback & Pulp Book Fair in Bloomsbury on November 24 I had to get a proof copy of the book ordered so I could check how the colours print before I had finished proofing the text.

That I've now done, with only one or two sentences needing to be  rewritten, usually for explanation or clarity. It's useful to have that time spent on designing a book and worrying about images as it gives you a bit of distance from the text and you can read it with fresh eyes.

If the cover and the colours are OK, I should be able to re-upload the inside pages and produce a short run of copies, enough to cover my trip to London at the end of the month.

So it's cover reveal day. This one was relatively easy as I knew what I wanted from the start, and I put together the cover pretty much as you see it before I even started on the book, which was a great relief—normally I struggle with covers and leave them to last. Then I ask Martin Baines to perform some wizardry, as I did with BEYOND THE VOID, my history of Badger Books. I had the basic idea to do it as a film poster, but ran into the problem mentioned above: getting it onto the computer screen in any way similar to how I imagined it in my brain.

Thankfully this one worked out OK. But Martin will be back and is already working on some ideas for the next book.

Talking of which, I started the new book on Wednesday. It's going to take a while to get it all together, because it's going to run to four quite hefty volumes. It's a reprint of a classic strip, but I'm keeping it secret as to what it is, although if you really want to know, here's a cryptic clue: Untangle the gym kit, thyme to go ape (5,3,6). If you solve it, please just let me know in a comment (they all pass through my hands before being posted, so I'll see them) or email me (my address is in the left-hand column) and I'll let you know if you're right. But I'm not going to name names publicly until contracts are signed.

Once I've seen the proof, I should have a page up for DREAMING OF UTOPIA within a few days, so I should be able to start taking orders. I should have more news on that here next week, or you can keep an eye on my Facebook pages—mine and the page for Bear Alley Books.